User blog:Inferno Pendragon/Horror, Grimdark and Ethics
sorry for what will be a rant blog but I have had the displeasure of watching a recent "modern" horror movie that has finally made me snap in terms of what some think of as horror and grimdark.. I am absolutely done with this new trend of "grimdark equals absolute misery and torture with NO ethics whatsoever".. I am fed up of media supporting this trend and I am now calling out the exploitive BS for what it is.. HORROR AND GRIMDARK SHOULD ALWAYS HAVE BASIC ETHICS, ANY STORY SHOULD Doesn't mean we can have happy endings.. look at ancient tragedies.. what it means is evil people should be punished or at least shown as being bad and not glorified.. horrific actions should not be inflicted on completely innocent people just for the sake of gore and shock. Yes, horror and grimdark always has a death-count and torture etc.. innocent people are often harme and evil doesn't always get punished but look at any old movie.. even the gorey ones like Nightmare on Elm Street.. ultimately the story end somewhat satisfying.. you don't end up feeling absolutely drained and dead inside. No one wants to watch something that leaves them feeling nothing but misery (unless they are desensitized, at which point I strongly suggest you NEVER watch horror again as you are not mentally fit if you find no empathy any more to suffering (fictional or otherwise) ) Even the shittiest, most grotesque horrors of the exploitation era (such as Cannibal Holocaust) had endings that at least made you not feel like you're an accomplice to brutal genocide.. you see a lot of disturbing stuff but you at least get a sense of story and not just a sense of "I just watched a snuff film". I used to blame Hostel for this trend but even that, as grimdark as it was, was a "one off" thing.. those that followed it were trying (and usually failing) to make a few bucks of the "new" (at the time) concept of no ethics. Yet after what I watched today I am done tolerating this crap.. to any who write horror or grimark.. PLEASE.. start to add basic ethics to a story and don't make it a depraved piece of shit just because "that's what's cool now". It was never "cool", it was never storytelling.. it is a disgusting spit in the face to horror and grimdark and the prime reason Moral Guardians think we are serial-killing fanboys and sadists.. (in case you wonder what film outraged me (taking in mind I've watched Cannibal Holocaust etc) it was The Tortured.. which revolves around a couple kidnapping a serial-killer and torturing him after he killed their son, only for the bastard "storywriter" to do a disgusting plot twist that the killer was actually a simple conman they caught by mistake.. so they torture a (basically) innocent guy to the point he is convinced he is a monster and hangs himself.. FUCK you if you think this is a "good" horror.. it's needlessly cruel and not what grimdark is.. (before anyone mentions internet stuff like Cupcakes.. that kind of stuff is expected in the dark corners of internet and 4chan but it shouldn't be the stuff we see in cinemas and TV.. it should remain a tiny little sector of "horror", not the new trend.. because it's the lowest, most base kind of storytelling) ) Category:Blog posts